Dave Sharma (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Persian New Year, or Nowruz, on 21 March, is approaching, but I know it's a particularly difficult time for the Persian community not only abroad in Australia but also in Iran at home. I've just come from meeting a group of the Iranian Canberra based community who are gathered outside parliament who want to make sure that people in parliament hear their message, and their message is that they support Australia's involvement in our support of our allies in the gulf, and they support the diplomatic and military pressure we're putting the Islamic Republic of Iran. They support our actions to grant sanctuary and safe haven to women from the Iranian soccer team who sought it, and they our support to make sure that we continue to put pressure on the government of the Islamic republic. Let us not forget that this is a regime that has treated its own citizens with the most wanton cruelty, that has exported terrorism beyond its shores, that has sown instability in its neighbours and that has conducted or financed and funded and directed at least two terrorist attacks on Australian soil. Their message to us was clear, and I do wish that more people in this chamber would bear in mind the sort of government we are dealing with in Iran.

I did want to register one particular concern they have, and that is their concern that, whilst Iranians students and protesters have been shot in their thousands in the streets in recent months, there are credible reports that children of regime figures, those who have ordered those killings, are being given sanctuary here in Australia. I speak in particular of the daughter of Yahya Sinwar, a sanctioned individual and commander within the IRGC, and the son of the Eshagh Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian parliament. Australia should not be giving a sanctuary or a safe haven to senior regime children.